


across distances

by kyluxtrashcompactor



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Emperor Hux, M/M, Pining, and Kylo takes advantage of this, and he's also super tired, because being emperor is hard, but in a good way, but is secretly a romantic, he's also tired of Kylo's shit, hux is emperor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 13:13:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12654231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyluxtrashcompactor/pseuds/kyluxtrashcompactor
Summary: Being an Emperor is hardly a glorious career, especially when one isn't interested in the pomp and circumstance. Hux's days are full of self-important dignitaries, monotonous negotiations, and substandard accommodations. The only good things about it are the secret, stolen moments behind closed doors.





	across distances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PalenDrome (nerdherderette)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdherderette/gifts).



> This is a birthday present for my lovely, amazing, wonderful [Palendrome.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdherderette/pseuds/PalenDrome)
> 
> The gorgeous, inspiring art is by [PangolinPirate.](https://pangolinpirate.tumblr.com/)

The sun was a hammer, dense and red-gold as it beat down upon him from the heavens, and Hux couldn’t shake the feeling that it was mocking him. It lingered in the sky during this season for nearly twenty-six of the thirty hours that marked a full cycle on this forsaken planet.

“Your Grace, the ambassador from Ralek has just arrived.”

Hux turned away from the veranda’s native stone wall, blinking iridescent spots from his vision. Mitaka stood in the doorway, dusky skin and black hair set off by the crisp white of his uniform. He was shading his eyes, squinting at Hux.

“Yes,” Hux acknowledged. “Thank you. Any word of Lord Ren?”

“None as yet, Your Gr…”

“Stop calling me that,” Hux sniped, pushing himself away from the wall and striding toward Mitaka, whose mouth closed and set into a familiar, narrow frown. This was an old battle.

“I’ll see that refreshments are set out,” Mitaka said primly. “And you should rest, beforehand.” Hux knew him well enough to hear the note of disapproval in his tone, and Mitaka knew him well enough, it seemed, to allow himself such a luxury.

Hux merely nodded and made a dismissive gesture toward the interior of the manor. Mitaka’s dark eyes narrowed just briefly before he turned smartly on his heel and disappeared inside.

Hux paused in the archway that Mitaka had just vacated and glanced up toward the burnt ochre sky. He could not remember a time since he had known Kylo Ren that he did not watch the heavens for his return. He’d looked for Kylo on the bridge of the Finalizer, searching the spaces between stars, waiting for him to be free of Snoke’s command. Hux had screamed at the firmament while he watched the remains of his ship streak through the atmosphere, plummeting to the ground where Hux waited for Kylo to find him. And now he had only endless daylight in which to think about the way that it was he himself who had sent Kylo out to do his bidding, and that their separation was merely a price Hux had forced himself to pay for his crown.

Hux closed his eyes, the sunlight imprinted on his eyelids.

_Can you hear me?_

He sent the thought upward, through the pink-orange clouds, through the atmosphere, into the vacuum. The words would dissipate there, and Kylo wouldn’t answer.

He never did.  

  


It felt like his work was never-ending; every endeavor seemed to require a meeting, each meeting begat a report, each report sent to his cohorts spawned replies that must be attended to, and there was an endless procession of ruffled feathers that must be smoothed and salivating maws that required feeding. All of it demanded a level of calculation the exactitude of which must be as fine as the mathematics of engineering, except his accomplishments in mechanics at least had a tangible product after months of work.

The achievements of a galactic leader, no matter the grand implications of a title like Emperor, were so dependent upon so many shifting and varied factors as to seem nebulous.

Or, as Hux sometimes felt, _fucking pointless_.

He hadn’t expected the meeting with the Raleki ambassador to go well; the man was fractious and passive-aggressive. He’d ignored the communications from Hux’s agents for weeks, and had arrived with a list of demands with which to hold hostage the funds the Empire required to purchase mining rights on Wellan-4. It was only marginally comforting that as soon as Hux had those funds, the Raleki ambassador would become immediately redundant.

Sinking down at his desk, Hux rubbed the paper-thin skin beneath both eyes, trying and failing to stifle a full-body yawn that made his shoulders quiver and one tear trickle down his cheek. He scrubbed it away with his thumb and turned on his data pad.

He ground his teeth at the number of messages in the queue, and heard in the back of his mind the echo of an argument he’d had with Kylo months ago. Kylo had told Hux that he would not be able to sustain the level of control he strove to have over his empire. That he would need more than just a handful of aides that he trusted. And yet here he was, a man who had once destroyed a star system trying to hold a galaxy together on his own. Ironic.

Hux rolled his eyes at his own despondent inner dialogue, closed his communications log, and brought up a star map of the Tiderion system. That had been Kylo’s destination nearly two months before, searching for a woman Hux believed to have valuable information pertinent to his negotiations with a particular Hutt cartel. For the last three weeks, the tracker on Kylo’s belt had pinged from Orlan, the largest moon in the system.

Today, however, there was no blinking red light on the field of electronic stars and planets, orbital pathways and shipping routes. Hux activated the key to scan for Kylo’s signature, sent an encrypted ping to his ship, but there was nothing.

Worry settled like an acidic knot in Hux’s stomach. He forced himself to mentally card through all the possible reasons that Kylo’s signal might have gone dark, and while many of them were logical, Hux couldn’t help focusing on the ones like _reduced to infinitesimal particles of space dust by high velocity collision with an uncharted asteroid_ and _disintegrated in unanticipated atomic blast_.

His catastrophizing was interrupted by the chirp of his door buzzer. He glanced at the display on the wall and found a service droid waiting patiently for its evening (such as it was) audience with the emperor.

Hux allowed the droid in, taking a moment to stretch as his evening meal was set before him. The droid did not ask questions or make demands, and disappeared again as soon as its duty was complete.

The door hissed shut on its hydraulic track, and Hux exhaled a sigh in unison. This was the time of his day that he always spent with Kylo, lounging on the bed and talking quietly. Kylo listened to him with no other agenda than to share his experiences and his burden—he didn’t want money, didn’t want trade agreements, didn’t want land. An entire galaxy under his control, and Hux only had one thing to himself.

But it was enough.

Hux dragged his dinner plate across the desk toward himself; it was meager fare, but he couldn’t stomach more in this weather. While the conference rooms and his private quarters were climate-controlled, the insufferable desert heat seemed to cling to his skin, making him feel just shy of feverish.

He picked at a small, round groppa fruit, its translucent green skin puckered at one end where it had begun to inch toward overripe; a singh beetle perched on the edge of his desk and watched Hux pop the fruit into his mouth and chew.

Whoever assumed being an emperor was a glorious endeavor was not in possession of the facts. Or even half of them.

Since he was already feeling sorry for himself, as he was wont to do only when Kylo was out of his reach, Hux propped his data pad up on its kickstand and browsed through a selection of his private videos of he and Kylo. He ate another piece of fruit and smirked at one titled _Interrogation of Prisoner 69,_ and hoped for not the first time that _that_ particular video never made its way into universal circulation. Hux had insisted that they delete it more than once, but Kylo always promised him that if anyone else saw it, he could just erase their memory of it.

Hux chuckled at the idea of Kylo scouring the galaxy divesting minds of classified amatuer porn, which was surely a fitting task for the emperor’s right hand.

The droid had left a tumbler with Hux’s evening dose of brandy, and he sipped it as he clicked on a video denoted only by a date. A smaller screen popped up, the image tilting wildly and spinning, showing first the floor and Kylo’s ridiculously big, bare feet, then the rumpled covers on the bed, and finally Hux.

Hux couldn’t justify the small, spindly creature in that bed with the persona he attempted to portray. The image on the screen crept closer to Hux’s face, and Hux remembered the way Kylo had been crawling unsteadily toward him on the bed, trying to slink sexily but managing only a sort of comical wobble. Hux’s face was scrunched in something between disapproval and humor in the video, and then his whole head disappeared under a pillow when Kylo started singing.

It was awful, not among Kylo’s many talents, and by the time Kylo had pulled the pillow off Hux’s pink face, Hux had been laughing until tears streamed down his face.

_“Stop it,” he said, batting at Kylo with the pillow._

_“Oh, come on,” Kylo purred, angling the camera too close to Hux’s face. “It’s not every day an emperor turns a year older.”_

_Hux rolled his eyes. “I’m exactly twenty-four hours older than I was yesterday, you idiot.”_

_Kylo flopped down on the bed beside him, turning the camera so it faced them both, and leaned close to fit both their faces into the picture. Kylo’s hair was a dark halo against the white pillow, eyelashes as dark as khol around his amber irises. Hux blinked at his image, frowning. He looked mousy with his mop of unruly red hair and skinny neck and sharp collarbones._

_Kylo was smiling at him through the lens. “If you could have anything, what would it be?” he asked._

_“You to get this blasted camera out of my face,” Hux said, giving Kylo a droll look._

_Kylo smirked. “Besides that.”_

_Hux stared at the camera, unblinking. “I already have what I want,” he said._

_Kylo raised both eyebrows, his smile a mix of comical and mischievous. “The galaxy at your feet?”_

_Hux turned away from the camera then, tucking his face into the crook of Kylo’s shoulder so he could whisper you in his ear._

Hux hadn’t seen Kylo’s expression at the time, but he watched it now, like he had a hundred times before. Kylo was a warrior, a man full of violent passions with a quick temper, but the camera caught, for just one second, something vulnerable that belonged only to Hux.  

The video ended after that, and Hux remembered how they’d had to look for the data pad in the sheets later. Much later.

Sighing, Hux sent another ping to Kylo’s personal comms, then scrolled through his videos looking for more moments to hold on to until Kylo returned to him.

 

* * *

  


Kylo could sense that Hux was sleeping before the door fully slid open; Hux’s energy was like an electrical surge, turning all the lights on in Kylo’s soul and attuning Kylo to his every impulse. Tonight, however, that energy was more like a wave softly lapping at a distant shore, constantly reaching out to touch consciousness before drawing back in an attempt at rest.

Hux never slept well. His mind never wanted to let go.

The room was mostly dark when Kylo entered, the only illumination coming from a data pad lying on the desk. The blue glow emitting from the screen bathed Hux in ethereal light, making his stark white uniform and the embossed filigree gleam.

It might have been a regal picture, but Hux was slumped over his desk, head on his arm, mouth open. There was the softest hint of a snore, which Hux would never admit to, and Kylo found it all the more endearing because of that.

He tugged his gloves off and laid them silently on the edge of the desk, reaching out with the Force to lay a blanket of calm over Hux. Then, gently, Kylo brushed back Hux’s tousled hair; the circlet of gold leaves that Hux wore as a signature of office had slipped from his head and was now balanced haphazardly on Hux’s arm.  

Hux stirred softly, scrunching his nose and frowning, like he was trying to mentally shrug off a pesky insect. Kylo traced the ridge of Hux’s cheekbone, the shell of his ear, and slowly, Hux’s eyes blinked open.

Just like Kylo recognized Hux’s energy, Hux knew Kylo’s. Instead of startling, Hux merely smiled, turning his cheek into the touch of Kylo’s knuckles.

“Where have you been?” Hux asked, voice groggy and distant, like he was talking to a dream apparition.

“Doing your bidding, my master,” Kylo said fondly, smiling when Hux snorted softly. Kylo touched Hux’s modest crown where it had fallen to lie on his arm. “It seems that tonight your laurels are resting on you, instead.”

Hux sat up, his brows pinching over his nose. “Your sense of humor is tragic,” he intoned, but when he turned in his chair to look at Kylo, he was smiling. The expression took years away from his face. “Didn’t I put a tracker in your belt when we first met?”

Kylo smiled, pulling Hux up by the arm. “Yes, you did.” He laid a hand dramatically over his heart. “But now it’s in here.”

Hux swayed on his feet in a sudden burst of laughter. “Please. It’s too late for this.” His cheeks were pink, however, and he nestled against Kylo, straining to press close to him through Kylo’s armor. His lips only barely brushed Kylo’s earlobe when he balanced forward on his toes, and Hux’s fingers plucked at the edge of Kylo’s breastplate, searching for the clasps.

“Don’t you want to debrief first?” Kylo asked, lifting his arms helpfully so Hux could work the clasps open.

“Debrief me on the way to bed,” Hux muttered, distracted by his work.

Kylo lifted the breastplate away, his cloak dropping to the ground in a flutter of red behind it. He reached out and tugged Hux’s jacket open roughly, feeling one of the tiny hooks bend.

“I located the target,” Kylo told him, trying to toe his boots off as Hux pushed him backward toward the bed.

“Is that right?” Hux asked, trembling fingers tugging open the front of Kylo’s tunic. His hands smoothed down the plane of Kylo’s chest and he took a deep breath before his green eyes flicked to Kylo’s face. “Was it difficult?”

Kylo left Hux’s jacket hanging open, revealing his narrow torso beneath a thin white sleeveless shirt. He tucked his fingers beneath Hux’s waist band, drew the zipper down and palmed Hux’s erection. “Yes,” he said. “It was very hard.”

Hux whined, which might have been because Kylo had has cock cradled in his palm or because of the sub-par pun. Hux continued to walk Kylo back until Kylo’s knees hit their bed. “And did you accomplish the mission?”

Kylo thumbed Hux’s hip bone, smirking at the way Hux was gazing at him—fiercely, as though Kylo faced punishment were he to admit failure. He tried to coax Hux’s trousers down, but Hux canted his hips back.

“Did you accomplish the mission, Lord Ren?” Hux growled.

Kylo smirked. “Yes, Your Grace.” He kept a straight face as Hux’s expression soured.

Hux planted a hand in the center of Kylo’s chest and pushed, hard, and said as Kylo fell back onto the bed, “Do. Not. Call. Me. That.” With every word, Hux was inching along Kylo’s body, crawling over him like a beast closing in for the kill.

Kylo bared his neck for his emperor, only he didn’t feel the teeth he’d expected sink in. Instead, there was the feather-soft brush of chapped lips, cold fingers that found Kylo’s hand and gripped it hard. Straddling his lap, Hux sat up enough to spear Kylo with his gaze.

“Don’t ever turn that tracker off again,” he hissed. “Or I will kill you.”

Kylo raised an eyebrow. “How are you going to do that if you can’t find me?”

Hux squeezed Kylo’s hand, his short nails digging into the flesh. “I mean it.”

Kylo reached up to stroke back Hux’s hair again, held it back from his forehead. “I know,” he said softly. “I wanted to surprise you.”

Hux blinked at him. “I maintain a galaxy as a career. I don’t like surprises.”

Kylo sighed, not bothering to remind Hux that today was his name-day. He never remembered, and didn’t understand why Kylo found quaint remembrances like that charming.

“As you wish,” Kylo told him. He was gratified by the smile that formed on Hux’s lips, and Hux’s fingers relaxed in his.

“Now,” Hux said, that smile turning up devilishly at one corner. “You may worship me.”

Kylo did not give Hux time to enjoy his cleverness, putting both hands on Hux’s hips and lifting him off, tossing him onto the bed like he weighed nothing. The air left Hux’s lungs in a needy rasp, and he arched away from the bed when Kylo tugged roughly at the pants of Hux’s uniform. Kylo shirked the rest of his own clothing, everything pooling in disarray at the foot of the bed.

Hux clawed for him, wrapping his fingers around Kylo’s arm and tugging, his body language telling Kylo that he wanted this fast and hard, like he always did when Kylo came back from a long trip.

Kylo shrugged out of Hux’s grip, pulled out of his reach to sit at Hux’s feet. He curled his fingers around one of Hux’s delicate, white ankles and drew it up, pressing a kiss on the top of his foot, just where it met his perfectly shaped toes.

Hux jerked his leg back, forcing Kylo to tighten his grip or be shaken off.

“Kylo,” Hux breathed, the way he twitched betraying that the galactic emperor was ticklish. “Stop. Just...fuck me.”

“Mmm,” Kylo murmured, bending the leg he held steady up toward Hux’s chest. He bent over it, kissing a tiny dark mole on the inside of Hux’s knee. “Not yet.” He ran his hand up Hux’s achingly soft inner thigh, teased the underside of his balls through the fine fabric of his briefs, smiling when Hux squirmed.

“I missed you too,” Kylo said, spreading Hux’s legs open gently and leaning down to mouth at a scar over Hux’s hip bone.

Hux made a noise that sounded like disgust and frustration, but which Kylo knew was neither. “You hadn’t commed me in days,” he complained.

“Couldn’t,” Kylo said, shifting up to tongue at the hardening bud of Hux’s nipple.

Hux’s retort died on his lips as he stretched his arms up, tangling his fists in the bedding. Kylo's tongue traced the line of his sternum up to the hollow of his neck, left one last kiss there, then flipped Hux suddenly onto his belly, pressing his weight against him. He was rewarded with an undignified moan and the feeling of Hux arching up into him, Kylo’s cock pressed to the swell of Hux’s buttocks.

Kylo was more gentle than Hux would probably have liked, opening him slowly, knowing that Hux would never have allowed himself to relax enough to pleasure himself in Kylo’s absence. He was tight, and Kylo found it impossibly arousing to feel how thoroughly Hux’s body belonged only to him—he reveled in the weak, needy thrusts of Hux’s hips on his fingers, the way he slowly relaxed and surrendered himself to Kylo’s touch.

When Kylo finally entered him, Hux keened, a sound that was as much relief as pleasure. Kylo wanted to take his time, to savor finally being able to feel Hux around him again, but Hux met Kylo’s slow thrusts with hard, eager slaps that soon pulled Kylo down with him into mindless need.

They finished together and collapsed, wound around each other, damp and reeking of sex. Kylo fell asleep for what might have only been minutes, until Hux’s fingers were coaxing his cock to readiness again. Kylo let him have his way this time, Hux bouncing in his lap until they both came again.

 

Hours later, the planet had fallen into true night, the shielding on their chamber windows allowing natural light through. Hux was asleep on Kylo’s chest, limned in blue from the glow of a data pad.

Kylo had retrieved it off Hux’s desk, wanting to check the status of a personal shipment, and instead he’d found the last video Hux had been watching, still open on the screen. He’d played through it silently, feeling nostalgia tug at his heart, like it was reminding him that there wasn’t enough time in the universe for him to love Hux.

As though sensing Kylo’s thoughts, Hux stirred. “What are you doing?” he murmured, blinking irritably in the blue light.

Kylo couldn’t think of a way to put a voice to his thoughts, so he pressed a button and turned the data pad around, so that the camera was facing them.

“If you could have anything, what would it be?” Kylo asked him, peering at their images on the screen.

Hux groaned. “Not this again.”

Kylo smiled, nudging Hux. “Come on, play along.” He zoomed in manually on Hux’s face by holding the datapad closer. “Anything at all.”

Hux hid his face against Kylo’s chest, forehead wrinkled. For a disappointing moment, Kylo thought he didn’t intend to respond, and then he slowly turned his face up to look at Kylo, rather than the camera.

“I wish you could hear me when I talk to you,” he said.

Kylo looked away from their images on the screen, furrowed his brow at Hux. “What do you mean? I do hear you.”

Hux sighed, chewing on his bottom lip. He made that expression when he was rethinking a decision. “I mean...sometimes when you’re gone, I look out at the stars and I wish you could speak to me. Across distances. But you never do.”

Kylo’s heart clenched, and he stroked fingers through Hux’s hair. The camera caught the motion out of the corner of his eye. “But I do, Hux. Every time I call out to you I hear you ask the same question in response...you ask if I can hear you. I feel you looking at the sky.”  

Hux stared at him for a long moment, his eyes round with disbelief, and then with something childlike. Wonder. “You hear me?”

Kylo smiled. “Always have.”

They watched one another, neither of them facing the camera this time. Kylo was momentarily distracted by Hux snatching the data pad from his hand and tossing it down to the foot of the bed, where it would, no doubt, vanish into the sheets.  

  
  
  



End file.
